Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat Glass

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

How certain is the Minister that the TradeMark East Africa project is having a positive impact on poverty reduction?

[Justine Greening]

This is an important project that is working in east Africa to remove many of the barriers to trade that hold back that region. We continue to assess the project, and our assessment is that it is working well. We will continue to look at it as it moves forward. If any project is bad value for money, we stop it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Pat Glass

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. The Prime Minister is right to say that we should be open to new ideas about how my Department and the MOD can work more closely together. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the existing ODA guidelines clearly set out what spend can be counted as ODA and what cannot be, but things such as peacekeeping fall within the ODA definition and we should look at how we can work more closely with the Ministry of Defence.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

13. Will that policy not simply take us back to the trade for aid days of the 1990s, when predatory western Governments behaved like payday loan companies and developing countries spent more on servicing debt than on helping people?

[Justine Greening]

I think the hon. Lady might have asked a supplementary question that related to a different question on the Order Paper, but we should be looking at trade as well as aid. That is the route to sustained poverty reduction.